Year 6 heard about the inspiration and research behind Tanya’s new novel ‘Lightning Strike’. It is about the ground-breaking strike by the Match Girls at the Bryant and May factory in 1888. The factory still stands in Bow Quarter, and is part of London’s East End history. Year 6 have been learning about it as part of their History curriculum.
Year 5 discovered how Tanya’s Murder Mystery series came to be written. It is like “Agatha Christie for kids”, with a girl detective called Poppy Fields. They also laughed out loud at the hilarious story of Tanya’s time working at Bristol Zoo. As part of her job, she had to dress as a giant Teddy Bear. One day, a bossy two-year-old decided to claim Tanya the Teddy as her own, and forced her to “eat” prawn cocktail crisps (and lots of other stuff) at her very own Teddy Bears’ Picnic. Tanya only escaped when the toddler fell asleep!
Years 3 and 4 enjoyed joining in with Tanya’s retelling of the traditional tale, ‘The Fisherman and his Wife’. She showed them photographs of the original hand-carved puppets that she used when working as a puppeteer, and explained that they were also the inspiration for another of her books, ‘Flotsam and Jetsam’.
We had so many great questions for Tanya, and especially loved hearing about her two Labrador dogs, and her fierce Siamese cat!
Look out for Tanya’s books in the library!